Loving Lentils

I love, love the nutritional powerhouse legume, lentils. I use lentils in soups, hide them in chocolate chip cookies ( recipe from Spilling the Beans by Julie Van Rosendaal & Sue Duncan) and make a super lentil salad or dip (recipe below).

 Did you know Canada grows about 67% of the world's supply? They were not a food I was introduced to growing up on the east coast as they are grown in Saskatchewan and southern Alberta. Now, living in Calgary I can feel I am eating local as well as healthy when I cook with lentils.

Canadian Chef Michael Smith, cookbook author and host of Chef at Home and Chef Michael's Kitchen has teamed up with Canadian Lentils to create a series of online videos, recipes and cooking tips.  I have cooked his lentil and rice recipe for quite some time. My hubby affectionately calls it glop- watching the video I now know why- I've been using the red split lentils which get mushy instead of the green! But mushy or not, this easy side dish is yummy. I look forward to trying it with the green lentils.

http://www.lentils.ca/

Elke's Lentil Salad (Dip)

Dressing: whisk together: 1/2 C vegetable or olive oil, 1/4 C red wine vinegar, 1 tsp. Djon mustard, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. cumin, salt and pepper to taste, 1 tsp. curry, pinch of cloves (optional- I never use), 1 tsp. lemon juice (optional). The recipe calls for this amount of dressing but I find it a bit much & usually half the recipe or double the salad ingredients.

Salad: Toss together: 1 can of small lentils, rinsed, 1 red pepper diced, 1/2 C currants or raisins, 3 green onions chopped, pinch of sugar.

Add salad ingredients to dressing. Toss & refrigerate overnight for best flavour. Serve with tortilla chips. Also tasty as a salad (room temperature or warmed up).

Do you love lentils? Or have you tried them? The video on the Canadian Lentil site inspired me to sprout some and try them in salads.